Adjust your eyes to the twilight
A career, and the times that change it
The old pitcher exhaled deeply, turned around and walked to the back of the mound. That pitch, the pitch that made the count 3-1, was a pitch that 20 years ago would have been called a strike. Umpires used to give him that pitch, a bit high in the strike zone, maybe just off the plate. The umpires calling pitches now are, with few exceptions, the same ones calling pitches 20 years ago. The strike zone, codified, is the same now as it was then. But the pitcher doesn’t get that pitch anymore.
When he first made The Show, the pitcher was hailed as a New Breed. He didn’t light radar guns on fire. Instead, he delivered precisely the pitch batters weren’t expecting, to precisely the spot in which he wasn’t expecting it, consistently. Many scouts skipped him, and many scouts regretted having done so.
When he first made The Show, batters weren’t swinging at first pitches. Each batter was an individual batter, with individual tendencies, and the pitcher knew how to exploit those tendencies. He studied them, obsessively. He tuned his delivery to each individual batter. That tuning made eight out of 10 batters he faced look bad, consistently, for several years. He threw what the commentators called “junk,” and they meant that as a compliment.
The game changed. Go down the pitcher’s year-by-year statistics, and you’ll see his strikeout numbers make a sharp but distinct increase for a seemingly random four-year period. The pitcher was never a strikeout pitcher, by the game’s traditional definition. He didn’t throw hard or fast, just precisely. However, for this time in the game’s history, batters were swinging for the fences. First pitches, second pitches, all the pitches. Swing and hope to make contact. The pitcher didn’t change his game to accommodate this. He just kept throwing pitches, with that precise “pinpoint control,” as the commentators called it. Batters kept swinging. Most of them missed. The pitcher’s numbers looked good, but not because of anything the pitcher had changed. The men with the money looked at the numbers and gave the pitcher money, and the pitcher took it.
The pitcher’s style was his best defense against the inevitable passage of time that slows all of us down, that makes us all some percentage of what we were. The pitcher didn’t throw hard. He didn’t throw fast. He just put the ball where he wanted to put the ball, where the batter couldn’t get to it. This worked especially well in a time where batters were swinging not out of instinct, but because it was the only thing they knew to do. It kept working for years when other pitchers’ bodies were breaking down under the strain of pitching the way that others pitched.
Things changed. The pitcher adjusted. When hitters missed curve balls, he threw curveballs. As hitters started hitting curveballs but missed sliders, he perfected his slider. He listened to coaches and older pitchers and learned all he could to craft his game. The pitcher viewed the game as craft, and treated it accordingly.
At some point, the pitcher was no longer the young star. He was the veteran, the one who was being asked for advice. Not that the younger pitchers listened. They knew how to pitch one way — throw as hard as you can for as long as you can until your body broke down. If your body broke down, that was OK, because there was surgery to fix it now. You no longer had to be scared to break your body, the way the pitcher was when he first made The Show.
The pitcher tried for a few years to not be scared to break his body. He threw to the radar gun, harder, with less precision, using less of his mind and more of his muscle on every pitch. He lifted the weights, like the young pitchers did. He willed himself to throw 90, like the young pitchers did. Their bodies broke down, and there was surgery to fix them. His body broke down. And there was surgery to fix it, but his body wasn’t like the young bodies. It didn’t recover in time for him to jump right back in. He had to wait longer. He had to watch the game pass him by.
When the waiting was over, the pitcher tried to bring the game back to him. But it was a different game now. Pitches that used to elude hitters now found the fat part of the hitters' bats. Pitches that used to be called strikes were now called balls. And something else was wrong. The routines of the game, the travel, the motions, the uniform, expensive nights out after games, the things that brought him comfort even when the pitches were hit … these things no longer brought comfort. The routine was no longer soothing. In years past, the game was his identity. He was the game. Now, the game felt more and more each day like an intrusion. Maybe it was time for a change.
Maybe he could coach. Maybe he could be an equipment consultant, as awful and boring as that sounded. Nobody cheers for equipment consultants. Writers don’t chase equipment consultants or coaches out of the shower to hear their thoughts about the game.
Maybe he could try playing shortstop again, like he did in high school, when his hair flowed from the back of his cap down his shoulders. Maybe he could re-learn to hit and shake up the routine a bit, to use what he learned to torment hitters to become a hitter.
But the routine is not to be shaken. The game thrives on routine. The game needs routine. The game does not want the routine to change. Pitchers don’t become shortstops again. Men whose hair has gone white under the cap, or whose hair isn’t there at all, don’t get to make those decisions. The game makes those decisions.
The pitcher could simply take a deep breath and settle back into the routine. But the routine was no longer his routine.
The pitcher once had a role. Every four days, that role was to step up on the mound and try to get to the eighth inning. Throw the ball to the places where the hitter least expects it. Keep the ball away from the bat. Play your role.
But now, on this team, pitchers no longer have “roles.” There aren’t “starters” and “relievers.” Some days, you might pitch the first inning and be done for the night. Some days, you might be the guy asked to come in with two men on base in the fourth inning and clean up that mess, and pitch until the ninth. Sometimes, you might come in for the ninth inning with a two-run lead and be expected to not screw it up. The pitcher would be happy to just shut up and do his job, but he no longer knows what his job is.
Someday, very likely some day soon, somebody will take the ball out of the pitcher’s hand for the last time. The pitcher won’t be sad when that happens; he knows that getting to pitch at all, ever, was a gift, a gift he did little to earn, because he never threw the ball hard. He was lucky just to be there, and he knows that, and knows that luck isn’t his to keep. It must someday be passed to some other person who is a New Breed of Something.
That will happen someday, and he accepts that. Right now, the count is 3-1, and the next pitch matters. He needs to start thinking about where that pitch should go, and try to muster up the magic one more time to make it go there.
Beautifully written. A baseball story that's also...so much more. Thank you for sharing it.